The equity barometers were trading with decent gains in early afternoon trade. IT shares resumed uptrend after a day's pause. At 12:23 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 129.06 points or 0.27% to 47,880.39. The Nifty 50 index added 39.75 points or 0.28% to 14,021.50.
The broader market outperformed the benchmarks. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index gained 0.93% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index rose 0.78%.
The market breadth was strong. On the BSE, 1883 shares rose and 876 shares fell. A total of 150 shares were unchanged.
Economy:
The Centre's fiscal deficit for April-November 2020 soared to Rs 10.76 lakh crore, or 135% of the full year budgeted target of Rs 7.96 lakh crore, as the government's finances continued to be stretched due to lower revenues arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic slowdown. Expenditure for the period has been 62% of the Budgeted estimate vs 65.3% last year.
Contracting for the ninth consecutive month, the output of India's eight core infrastructure sectors dropped by 2.6% in November, mainly due to decline in production of natural gas, refinery products, steel and cement. The production of eight core sectors had recorded a growth of 0.7% in November 2019.
Barring coal, fertiliser and electricity, all sectors - crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, steel and cement - recorded negative growth in November 2020.
During April-November, the sectors' output dropped by 11.4% as compared to a growth of 0.3% in the same period of the previous year.
The government on Thursday said that foreign direct investment (FDI) equity inflows into India grew 21% to $35.33 billion in the April-October period of FY21 from $29.31 billion a year ago. In a statement on its highlights for 2020, the Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT) also said that 26 FDI applications marked to it were disposed of during the year.
Derivatives:
The NSE's India VIX, a gauge of market's expectation of volatility over the near term, fell 4.53% to 20.14. The Nifty December 2020 futures were trading at 14,041.20, at a premium of 19.7 points compared with the spot at 14,021.50.
The Nifty option chain for 31 December 2020 expiry showed maximum Call OI of 78.18 lakh contracts at the 14,000 strike price. Maximum Put OI of 76.77 lakh contracts was seen at 13,900 strike price.
Buzzing Index:
The Nifty IT index rose 0.78% to 24,440.45. The index declined by 0.32% in the previous session.
TCS (up 1.80%), Larsen & Toubro Infotech (up 1.02%), Coforge (up 0.97%), Infosys (up 0.49%), HCL Tech (up 0.44%), Tech Mahindra (up 0.43%) and MindTree (up 0.29%) advanced.
Stocks in Spotlight:
Maruti Suzuki rose 1.11% to Rs 7734.70. The car major said its total sales rose 20.2% to 160,226 units in December 2020 from 133,296 units in December 2019. Sequentially, the total vehicle sales rose nearly 5% in December 2020 from 153,223 units sold in December 2020.
Rain Industries jumped 9.49% to Rs 138.50. Rain CII Carbon, the wholly-owned step down subsidiary of Rain Industries, has completed the sale of its wholly owned subsidiaries namely RUTGERS Polymers, Canada and Handy Chemicals (U.S.A.) for an aggregate cash consideration of Rs 637.40 crore. Both the companies were acquired by CPS Performance Materials Topco. The consideration received from the sale of above two subsidiaries will be utilized for repayment of debt and other general corporate needs of the company.
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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